What is your dream? What is your passion? Follow it!
The purpose of the Senior Project Program is to provide an in-depth, hands-on experience for self-motivated students who are ready to strike out beyond the traditional Stoneleigh-Burnham curriculum and delve into a particular interest. The overall goal is to assure that each student creates a high-quality project that combines real-world experience with focused research, resulting in a final product and presentation. Students are encouraged to design projects that require a synthesis of interests and skills across disciplines.
Examples of past projects include:
• “Singer-songwriter” In this project a student worked with current singer-songwriters to record and produce a CD of songs written and performed by her. Additionally, the student promoted the sale of her CD through a website, radio airplay, open-mic performances and her very own CD release coffee house performance.
• “Musical Composition” In this project a student studied different types of song compositions, learned computer composition software, and then composed two classical pieces of music.
• “Microbiology and The Characterization Of A Novel Bacterium” In this project a student focused on a hands-on biological research project done with Dr. Erik Lovley, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts -Amherst. She spent two afternoons a week working in the UMass lab and helped characterize an unknown bacterium while gaining invaluable lab experience.
• “Architecture and House Design” In this project a student worked with an architect to learn about all aspects of architecture work, including mapping a site, developing a budget, and using architectural computer design programs. Ultimately she designed a house on the computer and created a 3D model.
• “Sojourner Truth – a Dramatic Interpretation” In this project a student researched the life and times of Sojourner Truth, and wrote and starred in a one woman play reenacting her life.
• “Feminism and Cuba – the role of Cuban women in Post-Revolutionary Cuba” In this project a student engaged in an in-depth research project which included attending an educational conference in Cuba and culminated in a thirty page research paper.
Senior Project Program Director: Shawn Durrett, Chair of the English Department